Category: Journalism Training

The Al Jazeera English Online unit AJ Shorts was honoured alongside fellow awards winners from The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, Washington Post and leading East Asian news outlets at this year’s Human Rights Press Awards ceremony in Hong Kong.

The AJ Shorts digital documentary, Growing up too Fast in Afghanistan, won in the Short Video (English) category, which was announced at the event on May 16. The film is the first-person narrative of a 14-year-old boy, Khudai, whose father was killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group, forcing him to abandon school and take odd jobs to ensure the survival of his mother and five younger sisters.

Filmed and directed by Preethi Nallu, Growing up too Fast in Afghanistan also garnered two awards at the Webby Awards gala in New York City earlier this month.

Al Jazeera Media Network’s director of Digital Innovation and Programming Carlos Van Meek said he is proud of his team’s accomplishments.

“This was a great collaboration between our broadcast partners and our digital team. I credit everyone involved for thinking laterally and working together across platforms to get the most out of a great story. Much more of this to come,” said Van Meek.

Capitalizing on the strengths of their smaller markets and the inexpensive cost of reaching audiences online, these innovative startups are cultivating specialties, offering ancillary services, and even becoming major media players in their respective markets//Crimson Tazvinzwa
To journalists at Slovak news startup Denník N, the murder of reporter Ján Kuciak underlined the importance of the experiment they started more than three years ago.

Kuciak was shot in February as he investigated links between the Italian mafia and political corruption in Slovakia for digital news outlet Aktuality.sk and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. His death revealed the lengths to which criminals, corrupt officials, shady businesspeople, and others would go to quash a story in the Central European country.